


And More from the Instagram of Tommy J. Future

by sakuraba



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blended family, Comedy, Dogs, Family Fluff, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Spray Tans, a pinch of rich family melodrama, children's card games, much intentional character stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuraba/pseuds/sakuraba
Summary: Kaito's dad remarries.Worse things have happened, surely.





	And More from the Instagram of Tommy J. Future

**Author's Note:**

> based on the incredibly talented myken's [ blended family AU](http://mykenbomb.tumblr.com) \-- pre-knowledge of which isn't _technically_ required, but jeez, why would you deprive yourself like that!!
> 
> myken is one of my favorite people and creators, and i've kept her waiting for this fic for literally 2 years now, throughout which she's been unbelievably patient and all around chill. i can't promise this is a fic worth waiting 2 years for, but i hope it's at least half as fun to read as it's been to write!!

So Thomas has this dog.

It isn't that Kaito hates Thomas, not really. Sure, he uses outdated manga caps as references at the hair salon despite being the whitest thing since ABC Family’s Facebook account, and yeah, he dresses like the 90s and a Hot Topic discount rack did shots in an alleyway and threw up all over him, presumably amidst a torrid orgy attempt (hindered, tragically, by a zipper stuck on a ZOMG pin). Whatever. He's twelve. Kaito stole his bedroom, and he's twelve.

Kaito, though, Kaito's thirteen – just old enough to be past all that, and just young enough to get a sense of smug superiority from being past all that. He can take the gum-smacking, the X-Box Live, the Hollywood Undead raving from under Thomas's door into the wee hours of the night; maybe a barbed remark here and there where the cocktail of precociousness and God-given apathy fails. It's nothing. Not like Thomas even pays attention anyway.

But the dog.

God, the dog.

“I just don't see why you let him have that thing in the first place,” Kaito says. Chris opts to compare pasta prices instead of looking at him, and Kaito kindly doesn't point out that price has probably never been an issue for the Arclight family. He thinks roleplaying as a mid-recession ball-busting suburban mom on a budget might be how Chris deals with things. Whatever things Chris has to deal with. How Chris deals with Thomas.

Repression so leveled it manifests as the roleplay of repression, then. Jesus Christ.

“I'm not his father,” Chris says, amused; then, when Kaito quirks an unimpressed brow: “It's best to pick your battles with Thomas. It could teach him some responsibility, you know – besides, I thought you'd be happy he wasn't shouting into his headset all day.”

Which, yeah, he should be. Once he'd gotten his own 3DS and Thomas had broken Haruto's _Viva Piñata_ disc in a particularly vigorous game of impromptu frisbee, Kaito'd pretty much stopped seeing the X-Box 360 as anything but a ripe apple come to tempt him into the dulcet world of property damage. The thing is, though, the X-Box has headphones. The X-Box stays in the living room. The X-Box doesn't shit in Kaito's bed.

“It's just so out of nowhere,” Kaito says, sullenly following Chris out of the aisle. It occurs to him how weird they must look, two young teenage boys with a household's worth of groceries shoved into a cart, and briefly considers shoving his face into the freezer in true thirteen-year-old fashion. “Why is everything he does so...”

“Are you annoyed that he has a new interest or annoyed that you can't understand it?”

Sourly: “At least your AP Psych class is going well.” It's not even usually offered to sophomores, but Chris is the kind of honor student that makes people want to shove him into morning traffic, so he'd gotten the class anyway. Not that Kaito would even know if not for Thomas's bitching about it, so hey. Small world. “I'm annoyed because it's too big and too loud and Thomas almost gave me a black eye trying to play fetch. Twice.”

“Same eye?”

“No, his aim's getting better.”

He cracks a smile at that. Kaito’s stomach gives a truly repulsive wriggle, something like butterflies, and he casts a longing look back at the freezer section. It wouldn’t be that bad, he reasons. He’s small, could probably do it without causing too much of a scene, and maybe in the distant future when they thaw him out to make room for the ice cream of the future Chris will have died in a tragic shampoo modeling accident before he could’ve told anyone where Kaito went off to.

Unperturbed by his impending cosmetological doom, Chris takes a sharp turn into the cereal section. “Look, I know Thomas can be difficult, but try to keep your chin up. He'll warm up to you eventually – you're his stepbrother now, after all.”

Kaito grabs cocoa powder off the shelf and considers the benefits of drowning himself in the lobster tank.

* * *

“Morning, homo.”

Kaito has a decent memory, but the cool thing is that even if he didn’t, Thomas would be there to remind him that he's gay every single morning. This is a respectable kind of stability. He thinks about it as he pours a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for himself. And then another one, smaller this time.

Thomas is sitting with his horror-hound, which strikes Kaito with the type of neat satisfaction that comes from seeing dogs on the floor (and Delilah, too). It’s not even that Kaito hates dogs; he’s more of a cat person, but nothing is particularly wrong in theory. She’s cute, too, a big bundle of happy golden retriever fluff. Thomas just seems to make everything disgusting by virtue of being alive, and Kaito would come to terms with that with quiet dignity if not for it being constantly shoved in his face. Family values, you know? Plus, Delilah is the whitest name Kaito has ever heard in his life, and he is absolutely certain Thomas chose it just to spite him and make a further parody of himself.

And... yeah, the dog shit in his bed doesn’t help either.

“Have you potty-trained that thing yet,” Kaito asks from under a yawn, “or does she still piss in your bed as much as you do?”

Mostly nonplussed, Thomas settles for just shooting him an annoyed look, too focused on playing with Delilah to muster up much bite. “Shut up, Kaito. You’re anemic.”

“Be civil,” Chris says. He sounds stern, which – yeah, okay, Kaito can admit they deserve. It’s tactless. It’s 7:15 AM. Chris can deal.

“Well he _is,_ ” Thomas grumbles. This is routine in and of itself: Kaito eats breakfast, Thomas is an abomination unto God, Chris mediates while he makes coffee and then evaporates in a cloud of Ralph Lauren-scented Honor Student vapor to help Michael get ready for school. And, of course–

“Haruto,” Kaito says. The boy in question plops down sleepily at the table, a noble case of bedhead obscuring an eye and a half. Kaito pours milk into the second bowl he’d gotten before and passes him a Twin Stars spoon. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

Haruto hums something vaguely affirmative, to which Kaito nods fondly. This is not news. Kaito would nod fondly if Haruto prophesied the next cataclysm down to the millisecond, which Thomas has predicted he will do any day now.

And thus the morning goes, with only two more comments about Kaito’s red blood cell count before it’s time to disperse. Maybe Chris was right; maybe Thomas _is_ warming up to him.

“Haruto, here,” Kaito says, fishing in the front pocket of his backpack. It isn’t anything special, certainly nothing big enough that he can find quickly – come on, where is it – but–-

Haruto’s face lights up when Kaito sets the piece of caramel down on the table, small and shiny and wrapped neatly in blue-lined plastic. “Nii-san! Can I...?”

“Mhm – just don’t tell dad, okay?” Not that their dad would care, really, but Haruto grins at the idea of sharing a secret, and Kaito helps him smooth the wrapper open. “Now have a good day, okay?”

Haruto lets out a happy hum that Kaito takes to be an agreement before scurrying off, backpack strings fanned out behind him like comet trails. He should fuss about the running – he’s been better lately, less sickly, but he’s still a wisp of a boy – but before he can fret his way to a decision Haruto is out the door.

“You give him one of those every day,” Thomas says as he comes down the stairs. He sounds a little miffed. “I don’t know how you afford it – selling your homework on the dark web or something?”

“They’re not expensive. Try not spending your entire allowance on Love Live gems the day you get it – and who buys homework on the dark web?”

“People who aren’t smart enough to read the back of the book, I guess. Not everyone’s as gifted as me or as nerdy as you, you know.”

He doesn’t bother asking who would be stupid enough to pay for free information but savvy enough to access the dark web, whatever that actually is, and is proud of himself for picking his battles. “You can read?” he asks. (Well. Not that proud.)

Thomas hits him in the shoulder. Kaito insults the size and intended uses of his hands.

Thus the morning goes.

* * *

 Picture day hits the Arclight-Tenjo household with a radiant glow: a bright and blinding glare that fills the McMansion like so many flahes-on-braces, bronze and ugly and–-

Oh, wait. That would be Thomas’s spray tan.

His skin is already a little darker than his brothers’s, enough so that Kaito is about two years away from striking up a very sophisticated theory about his armchair psychological profile, but he really does come striding down the stairs with the confidence of a Disney show dog, so. Well. He’s gotta be asking for it at this point, right? Maybe this is God giving Kaito a break.

So he pretends to squint. “You get a spray tan?” he drawls. “How the hell did you afford that – between buying your homework and gambling before school for cilantro packets, I figured your budget would be pretty tight.”

“We have plenty of cilantro in the cabinet!” Michael pipes up, God bless his heart. Kaito feels duly reassured. “I think you look really handsome, Thomas. Just in time for picture day!”

Thomas falters, looking appropriately agonized between wanting to preen under Michael’s attention and flip Kaito the bird. He settles for doing both at the same time. “Shut up, Kaito, you’re anemic,” he says as he ruffles Michael’s hair. “At least _someone_ around here understands style – shut up, III, don’t get ahead of yourself just because you’re a little better than Kaito.”

Kaito rolls his eyes, fishes some more cereal out with his spoon. “Whatever. Do people even still dress up for picture day? I thought that was all a little… elementary school. No offense, Michael. All offense, Thomas.”

Michael nods amiably. Thomas looks at him like he’s roadkill. Home sweet home. “ _Do people still dress up for picture day,_ ” Thomas parrots, slamming a can of Coke on the counter self-righteously. He has a baby acne problem; Kaito gambles with the idea of bringing up the potential soda correlation and how doing so might affect the fate of Kaito's fingers. He decides to play it safe. “Maybe if you’re a nobody content to just die alone and nameless–”

 _Pegged,_ Kaito concedes silently. 

“–but anyone who wants to build _brand recognition_ needs to get their ass in every picture they can. Exposure is exposure, Kaito – that means me.” He pauses, troubled or unsatisfied or both where he leaves off, so he clarifies: “My ass.”

“What ass,” Kaito says blandly.

His hands slam palms-down on the table, beyond it. “I’m going to be a _celebrity,_ ” he says. “My ass is going to be public domain.”

Kaito knows, logically, that the way to make him angriest in this situation would be to gently put his hands over where Thomas’s own are pressed angrily onto the table, but frankly he doesn’t have the stomach for it. Instead, he just says, “That doesn’t really answer the question, you know.”

Which normally would be cue for another round of verbal back-and-forth, but Thomas must be in one of his moods. He storms out, threats of bodily harm and the whiff of chemical sun in his wake.

Michael giggles just a little, the small curve of a smile bitten back behind his pencil eraser. “You shouldn’t tease him so much,” he says despite it all. “He’s kinda mean sometimes, but he’s just…!”

There’s a lot Kaito could say to that, really, but the apologetic smile on Michael’s face suggests he understands more than anyone what Thomas is “just,” so he lets it be. “I’ll do my best.”

Michael fairly beams. “And I mean!” he adds. “We’re all on the same team now anyway – everybody knows he’s your brother now, right?”

“Oh Christ.” Yeah, they sure do – he lets himself have a moment to think about stabbing his spoon directly into his brain before he gets back to the important issues. Namely, sinking his head down onto the table. “My brother is Chester the Cheetah," he says. "Chester the Cheetah is my brother and everybody knows it.”

Michael pats his shoulder consolingly.

He drags himself up by the shoulders, bringing his bowl to the sink. Gotta start the day somehow; might as well do it with the most horrifying revelation ever experienced by mankind. “Just make him shower it off today, okay?” he calls behind him. “If we let that thing fade naturally it’s gonna give me SAD in the middle of spring.”

"I'll do my best!" Michael says, and Kaito believes him.

* * *

Some nights Kaito helps Michael with dishes, less to do with pity and more to do with his desire to spite Thomas ushering along any God-given helpfulness. These are the nights that send Kaito into a bit of a lull; Michael is the kind of good kid that makes Chris look more like a show horse, all big and polished bells and whistles where Michael is just... nice. Kaito doesn't really mind spending time with him, and every once in a while it hits him that Michael probably won't ever really remember a time before Kaito and Haruto moved in.

God, that's weird to think about.

“You really don't have to do this,” Michael says, thus kicking off their semi-weekly routine of good-mannered table tennis. Kaito doesn't mind. Unlike Chris (or Thomas, when he bothers to try), Michael has an undercurrent of earnestness to his politeness that Kaito just can't bring himself to get annoyed at. Not that he'd want to anyway. He reserves his enmity for one Thomas J. Arclight.

“I really don't mind.” He lifts a stack of clean plates onto the shelf he knows Michael has difficulty reaching. “It's not like it takes much time. Thomas is just an ass.”

Michael just hums, amused, because Thomas is still his brother and honestly Kaito doesn't know that Michael could be mean to him if he tried. Fortunately, now he has Kaito, who's made it his sovereign duty to give Thomas a hard enough time for the both of them.

And the devil himself is plenty willing to return the favor, apparently. “Hey, III, hurry up and finish so we can–” He stops short at the edge of the kitchen, hovering there like a vampire at the edge of a threshold. The paint is chipping around the entryway to the dining room, Kaito notices. “What are you doing in here.”

“Helping,” Kaito says. “What, have you seriously not noticed? I've been doing this for weeks.”

“Shut up. We have a chart.” They do, in fact, have a chart, made by Chris with the probable intention to keep them out of his hair, or further his fetish for suburban motherhood dramaturgy. Michael just “really doesn't mind doing dishes, honest” and Thomas is surprisingly diligent with the rest of his chores so it's whatever. Kaito doesn't know why he's making such a fuss about it, honestly. “Michael would tell me if he needed help. Right, Michael?”

Michael blinks. “Huh? Kaito offered! I didn't ask.”

“Right.” Thomas shuffles, sullen but with nothing to complain about. Kaito cleans a fork for the third time. This is the kind of ABC Family shit he was really hoping to avoid.

Angel that he is, Michael smiles from under the stack of plates he's on tip-toe to put in the cupboard. “Besides! This way I'll be done faster, so we can play th–”

“Yeah, change of plans,” Thomas interrupts. He doesn't look up. “I've got stuff to do tonight. Gaming with friends.”

“What?” Michael fairly wilts, and Kaito suppresses a kernel of sympathy. He isn't interested in getting involved in their family drama, he's really not–- “But you just...”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Michael's a smart kid, and Kaito figures he can see through Thomas a mile away; still, all at once his expression transforms, soft and plastic. “Okay! I hope you have a good time!”

“Yep. Definitely.” And with that he trudges back out to the living room, nary a whiff of BOD spray in his wake.

Kaito feels like his joints will creak obnoxiously if he moves first, so he settles for shifting a little and rolling his shoulder blades as little as possible. “Uh,” he says, ever the diplomat. God, this is really turning into Three’s Company, isn’t it, except there are five of them, unless you exclude Chris and Haruto which you feasibly could, but they’re also all boys and there are no societal charades going on, and didn’t those three want to live together anyway? _What a mess_ , Kaito thinks with a grimace, and not just about his abysmal knowledge of late-70s sitcoms.

“Sorry about that,” Michael says. He smiles, but Kaito’s spent too long playing big brother to miss warning signs for upcoming waterworks. “He’s just–”

“It’s nothing. Uh, why don’t you let me finish the dishes? I think the rest of them go too high for you to reach, anyway.”

“Huh? Are you sure, I–” 

“Positive.”

It’s the most transparently bullshit excuse known to man, but Michael gives him a watery smile and pretty much flies up to his room anyway, so Kaito counts it as a modest success. He reorganizes the cupboard to stay out of the warzone and thanks God that Haruto isn’t a middle child.

* * *

Michael and Thomas seem to make nice with relative ease, because the next time Kaito sees them it’s when Michael announces his status as Student of the Month and Thomas doesn’t even attempt a half-hearted insult. Preening under the loving touch of Thomas’s half-noogie, half-congratulatory-hair-ruffle, Michael goes doe-eyed and asks for hibachi, as a reward.

A sophisticated ten-year-old, that kid.

Byron slash Mr. Arclight slash stepdad (slash “Tron,” if Thomas’s stories of their father’s nefarious ToonTown escapades are to be believed), who is spending a rare night home from the lab, agrees with a beam, so long as they can wait for his evening cartoons to finish airing.

Kaito graciously remembers the opening quote of The Great Gatsby, which he saw once on some girl's tote bag in Target and felt he had a general understanding of, and gives Haruto a bath while they prepare to go out.

They’ve been there about fifteen minutes when Thomas asks, strumming his fingers impatiently on the table, “Can I get dessert now?” This is common fare when getting anything but pizza or chili cheese dogs, Kaito has come to realize. Thomas has the palate of a trucker with three teeth.

Kaito finishes cutting up Haruto's chicken into even smaller pieces, mouthing a sympathetic _White people_ as he hands back his plate. Haruto grins into the straw of his Sprite.

Still, Chris has a job to do, and he does it with the patience of an esteemed veteran. “No,” he says, simple and stern. Sometimes his ability to keep the devil on a leash is admirable, really. “Finish your sushi first.”

Which, yeah, that’s pretty typical, enough so that he doubts even Thomas will throw much of a fit about it. If anything, he’ll grumble about how much of a drag Chris is, how he’s acting like an old fart and he’s not their dad (who has, in fact, already started in on dessert) and Kaito’s right about his weird matronly gait and wait just a goddamn minute.

Blink.

The countertops they’re eating on are a clean and forest-green marble. Kaito is wearing suspenders. His plate has a chip in it. Behind them is a canopy of sound, small-talk and silverware and the sound of knives clanging together in the kitchens. Haruto is drinking Sprite because it’s a special occasion. The glasses are ridged. These things are quickly and efficiently cataloged and archived somewhere easily-accessible in Kaito’s brain, because this is a moment he is going to remember forever.

Blink.

Michael's already hiding a smile behind his hand and saying, politely, “Those are rice balls, Chris,” by the time the shock wears off, leaving Kaito free to laugh his ass off in atypical-typical teenage boy fashion in the middle of a mid-scale Japanese restaurant. The middle-age couple next to them casts him a Look. Kaito considers pressing his face into the Hibachi but is laughing too hard for the embarrassment to hold much weight.

Chris takes it in stride because of course he does, but Kaito barely even notices. There are tears in the corners of his eyes. This is the best day of his life. This is the best day of any life, ever.

Across the table, Thomas is also shaking with laughter, and even that can’t ruin Kaito’s day. Especially not when– “Gee, Chris,” he says, leering over the rim of his glass, “all that talk about _multicultural literacy_ when the old man got married, and you don’t even know what sushi is?”

Kaito and Thomas burst into another fit of laughter, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Michael – patting Chris’s arm sympathetically though he is – positively beaming. Student of the month does have its quirks, huh?

(Kaito, not five minutes later: “You know, using your chopsticks as tusks in a woolly mammoth impression isn’t exactly _multicultural_ _literacy_ either.”

“Shut up, Kaito, you’re anemic.”)

* * *

Some silver linings:

Thomas is a smug, shitty little bastard whose existence makes a strong case for why breathing air should require a government-assigned license, but he’s twelve, and will probably be punched down a peg or otherwise given penance before he hits his high school midpoint. Kaito is a smug, shitty little bastard who has a frankly ridiculous penchant for catastrophizing, but he’s thirteen, and has some measure of self-awareness that will hopefully help the transition into slightly less shitty and smug young adult. Michael is fine.

Chris is an Ivy League wet dream, but he drives a mini-van.

God, Kaito feels better already.

The catch-22 being, of course, that the mini-van is why he needs cheering up at all, sort of. The reason Chris can afford a car in the first place, after all – _family inheritance,_ Kaito had offered half-snidely, only for Chris to assure him that he did in fact make the payments _himself,_ to ensure _agency_ and _responsibility,_ even _independence,_ at which point Kaito had stopped listening in favor of considering running him through with a sword – is because of his job at the lab, which has a tendency to put him on a time crunch. So rather than the usual routine of dropping Michael and Thomas off at home after school and Michael’s archaeology club, there’s been some emergency, and–-

Long story short, they’re all going on a _family grocery shopping trip._ Michael is making a valiant attempt to tell them about a Discovery Channel documentary clip he saw today over Thomas’s aux cord bullshit -- which Kaito predicts has about thirteen more seconds before Chris realizes it’s about oral and turns it sternly back to Radio Disney -- and the feeling of cold window glass on Kaito’s cheek is probably the only thing keeping his soul from forcibly projectile-vomiting itself onto the asphalt. But hey, at least he got shotgun, right?

He wonders briefly at the likelihood that the mini-van has tinted windows, and then at how likely a spectacular life-ending explosion would result from opening the door and ragdoll-rolling out onto the highway.

“That’s fantastic, Michael,” Chris says. He sounds like he’s talking to a potential employer, if that potential employer were sitting across a football field during a halftime show. “Thomas, I _really_ don’t know that this is such appropriate music while your little brother is in the car–-”

“What!” Thomas yelps indignantly. Kaito can only hear the pout, but the kick to the back of his seat is oh so tangible. “It’s just 3oh!3! You won’t let me play Blood on the Dancefloor, so I put on kiddie stuff!”

And Michael, bless his little heart, just wants to help, because he pipes up, “I like 3oh!3!”, only for Thomas to let out a sound of affronted disgust and sullenly surrender the aux cord.

Ah, brotherhood.

“We’ll get through faster if we split up,” Chris says, once they’ve finally made it through the door. (Thomas’s attempts to moon the security cameras only slowed them down a minute and a half, so Kaito figures they’re making good time.) “Remember, I really need to get back to the lab, so _please_ be on your best behavior, okay? Michael, stay with your brother–”

Chris goes down the list, delegating as quickly and efficiently as he can, and Kaito is almost sympathetic. It must be tough being a wine mom at the tender age of sixteen. He doesn’t even think there’s any Ritalin in the house to steal, except for maybe Byron’s.

He’s pulled back to reality when Chris turns to him. “Kaito, if you'll grab the baguettes–”

Thomas snickers. “Faguette.”

“ _Thomas—”_

“No,” Kaito says graciously, “You pretty much set him up for that one.”

“ _Thank_ you!”

“Besides, we’re all allowed to reclaim–”

“I’m not–!”

“ _Okay,_ ” Chris cuts in, putting a hand on either of their shoulders, “this seems like a good time to split up, then. Meet me back here in fifteen minutes, okay? Everyone have baskets?”

The rest of the shopping trip goes off without a complaint, which Kaito figures he can probably attribute to the distinctive lack of Thomas Arclight attempting to put a new hole in the family wallet for every candy-colored object in sight. Not that the Arclight family wallet has probably ever been too bothered by a few little holes, but, well. Force of habit? Besides, Chris’s mental health would crumble like a house of cards if he couldn’t act like a stepford wife for the day. Maybe something about the sugar, then. 

When he gets back to the meeting point, Chris is still yet to be seen, but Michael and Thomas are already there – and preoccupied by looking at… something. Huh. He isn’t close enough to see quite yet, really, but Kaito didn’t really think there was really anything on the stands up front except for–-

Oh _God._

“So what kind of deck do you play?” Kaito asks casually. He leans up against the stand with his hands in his pockets, only to immediately realize he probably looks like he’s stealing something and take them out like he’s been burned. Thomas seems to share the sentiment. 

“ _Hey!”_ Thomas says. He whirls around. “Hey.”

Kaito arches a brow. “Hey?”

Middle Child Syndrome's reluctance is not universal. “Thomas plays a Gimmick Puppet deck!” Michael says, happily waving around a shiny tinfoil packet. Thomas promptly shoves one in his mouth.

“I don’t play, that’s kid stuff.”

Kaito casts a pointed glance to where Michael is trying to get a pack of cards out of his mouth. “Okay.”

“I _don’t.”_ His face is an interesting shade of red, color blooming all across his cheekbones and down his face, and the added flush rounds out his features more than usual. He looks like a baby. An especially ugly baby.

“I said okay.”

Thomas huffs, and finally his wrist goes slack enough that Michael can cough up a slip of foil. “Shut up, Kaito,” he grumbles. “You’re anemic.”

Chris chooses that moment to arrive with the brunt of the groceries, and over Thomas’s shoulder Kaito thinks he can see Michael grinning.

* * *

It's a bad day.

The thing about middle school is that it's actually verifiably the devil's pisshouse in the grand divine comedy that is the public education system, and attending happens to coincide with the fact that Kaito has enough typical teen angst to hang himself with. This is normally what's called Being Thirteen. He's pretentious enough to make it through on self-satisfaction most days, but that doesn't change the fact that he's basically a bundle of highly-charged nerves just begging the universe for a reason to explode his guts onto the nearest bystander.

And today the universe complied in spades -- complied namely with a tardy slip and a forgotten binder and a sixth-grader vomiting on him in gym class. By the time he gets home he's considering the merits of leaving school altogether, opting instead to pursue a promising career in dumpster-diving behind cheap suburban mini-marts.

He's in his room changing into something more comfortable and less vomit-stained when he steps on a puddle of something cold, wet, and suspiciously yellow. Par for the course. In the living room, there’s a digitized blast from the television speakers.

...Huh.

He kicks his socks off into the laundry basket with contained disgust, then B-lines for the X-Box. “You or your dog pissed in my room, and whichever one of you _didn’t_ do it should have the good grace to clean it up. Also, where's the second controller.”

He’s distracting enough for Thomas to cast an affronted glare his way, eyebrows furrowed and perpetrator wagging her tail happily in his lap, and ah, player two’s still on the charger! Perfect. Time to kill some bitches. “What? You can't just jump in, you're gonna ruin my stats–”

“Don’t care.” He plops down on the couch. “How do you play?”

“ _You_ don’t,” Thomas says. He looks like he’s about to pop a blood vessel and it is glorious. Delilah’s tail wags away. “I’m serious, you douchebag, I’m not going to t–”

“I’ll tell Chris that you broke his telescope trying to teach Delilah to breakdance.”

“Oh my fucking God! Fine!”

And that’s pretty much how that goes.

Funny thing-- Kaito is actually pretty good at video games, though he’s never mentioned it to Thomas before. The idea of getting roped into some kind of Halo blood cult is enough to keep _that_ information locked up tight, thank you kindly. But he’s a bored kid with an abysmal-to-nonexistent social life and a 3DS, so yeah, his hand-eye coordination’s gotten pretty nifty over the years. Sure, shooters and Legend of Zelda aren’t exactly the same format, but at the end of the day he’s got the gene for Kicking Shit Around With An Implausibly Large Weapon. Via controller, at least.

So, after the initial round of grumbling, Thomas is… surprisingly cool about it.

“So I’m guessing your day was pretty shitty, huh?” Thomas asks when they’re done.

“You don’t care.” And he doesn’t. Just because they’re basking in the glow of their complete and utter conquest over a pair of Kool-Aid Jammers doesn’t mean Kaito’s gonna start mincing words, jeez.

“Right!” Thomas beams, apparently elated that Kaito got the point. “But I figured you’d appreciate my insight anyway.” (He doesn’t, but it’s not as annoying as it could be. He elects not to push Thomas out of his chair just yet.) “It’s what _I_ do on shitty days, anyway. Nothing like blasting some pre-pubescent bitches into fucking space to blow off steam.”

Kaito doesn’t point out that Thomas does this _every_ day, partially because he doesn’t care but also because he remembers being in seventh grade, and, well, gee. You deal how you can. 

Instead, he says, “A sixth grader vomited on me” with all the world-weariness of a war vet staring out to the horizon in some seaside bar. He takes a long pull of his Kool-Aid Jammer.

Thomas pulls a face, nods sagely. “Fucking gremlins.”

“Amen.”

“Well if you ever wanna blow off steam again,” Thomas says, sliding off the chair, “player two is open.” He starts the slow inch towards his bedroom, presumably off to a busy night of not doing his homework.

Kaito snorts. “You’re only saying that because I’m good.”

“No shit," he calls behind him. "If Michael tries to play, distract him with Discovery Chanel.”

* * *

On top of dragging Kaito along for annoying psychoanalysis sessions under the guise of “bonding” shopping trips (“I know work and class keep me busy a lot of the time, but the company of another oldest brother is invaluable,” as he said the first time, and Kaito would have called him out on it if not for that plastically dazzling for-teachers-and-mentors smile making his insides go all weird again.), Chris also occasionally uses his driver’s license for good – namely, picking up food.

He’s at their fathers’s lab or staying late for some extracurricular activity plenty of the time, but for these nights he keeps well-prepared, refrigerating in Tupperware something pre-made for a marinade or Crock-Pot ( _mise-en-place_ , he sometimes says, with just a trace of a faux French accent, and Jesus _Christ_ Kaito has seen Food Network too but he honest to God is going to kill Chris someday). Usually it’s just something to pop into the oven or whatever with minimal additional prep work to be done, but even that is lined out in careful penmanship on color-coded Post-It notes attached to their proper dish.

Kaito wonders, sometimes, if Chris has ever masturbated in a Staples.

But ribbing aside, it’s one of the more welcome lifestyle changes he and Haruto have encountered since dropping everything to move onto the set of _Pasadena._ Kaito prides himself on his brotherly duties, but he’s also twelve, so stove-top pasta and pizza rolls are roughly all he can accomplish without a little help. It’s not that the freezer section is much labor, per se, but Haruto has never been the healthiest kid in the world, and… well, it’s weirdly nice to be taken care of, sometimes.

“You’ll spoil Haruto’s dinner, if you keep giving him caramels like that,” Chris says lightly. School is ending, soon, so his father had insisted he take the week off from lab work to focus on finals and “lessen stress,” as though Chris has ever felt that in his life. Without a neatly-written culinary to-do list on his plate, Kaito’s just sitting at the counter, valiantly chugging his third Coke of the hour as he wades through math homework. A more charitable person might accuse him of _keeping company;_ a lesser might suspect Thomas’s hellhound had done something unmentionable in his bed again. A mystery lost to the sands of time.

Kaito yawns, swallows a retort. Chris isn’t actually lecturing – actually, he sounds very nearly _fond_ , and this is how Kaito knows he’s teasing. This is, essentially, the only way Chris can seem to communicate with other humans without condescending. Kaito doesn’t mind. Mostly.

“They’re his favorite,” he explains instead. A-squared, B-squared, slug of Coke. “Have been since he was a baby.”

Chris hums as he minces garlic. “Much to do with you, I’d imagine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm? Oh– nothing important. But you used them as an antidote, so to speak, when he was ill or sad, right? After your mother…” A frown fractures his brow, his knife slowing in his hand. “Ah, I’ve spoken out of turn, I’m sorry. I simply meant that while his taste for caramel is undeniable, I’m sure that whatever you gave him then would have become his preference.”

Kaito shakes his head, dismissive. “Stuff with my mom is fine,” he says. And it is; he doesn’t remember her much, and any baggage he has to unpack there can wait until after pubescent hell is over and done. “That’s not what I meant, though. How did you know that?”

If Kaito didn’t know any better, he would call the look on Chris’s face _sheepish._ “Oh, that? I was home early today and he wanted to go for ice cream – he’s surprisingly chatty when he’s not under the weather, hmm?”

And Kaito pauses to look at him, _really_ look at him, pencil snagging on an irregular fraction. The thought of another person looking after Haruto stirs up some kind of feeling in him, one that maybe has a sliver of jealousy stirred in but is more powerfully _relieved_ ; somewhere between his shoulder blades, a labyrinth of an iron lock puzzle slides and unlatches. The water starts boiling, and Chris breaks the pasta in half before dumping it in, and Kaito thinks maybe he can get used to this.

Behind them, Thomas shouts “Nuked, bitch!” into his X-Box headset. Delilah gives a victory _boof._

One step at a time.

“Chris,” Kaito says. He twirls the pencil around his knuckles, suddenly contemplative. “Do you think it'd be possible to put Thomas to sleep?”

Chris casts a smile over his shoulder, too wry to be completely apologetic. “I'm afraid it's not time for him to go to bed just yet. Think you can stick it out another three hours?”

Kaito takes a cool sip of his Coke. “That's not what I meant.”

That, at least, has Chris laughing – as close to laughing as Chris ever gets, at least, a little huff under his breath – and then, “You're smiling, you know.”

He blinks, suddenly interested in his math homework. “I smile,” he says, trying for miffed but coming across defensive instead. And, well. Whoops. Idly he considers crawling under the counter and banging his head against the wall until he knocks out.

“Of course,” says Chris. “Could you help me plate? Dinner's ready.”

* * *

Kaito wakes up to a tongue on his face.

“ _Great!_ ” he grits out, wrestling a soft and snuggly bundle of gold out of his bed. God, she’s like sunshine. It’s like 5 in the morning and there is no place for sunshine in his bedroom.

From somewhere beyond Kaito’s three-inch line of vision, there’s a ribbon of snickering, followed by another, much more apologetic round thereof. Great. Thomas, he can almost understand sneaking into his room before dawn to terrorize him, but Michael? Why–

Before he can sleep-fumble his way through that line of interrogation, Thomas answers for him. “Get up, homo,” he says. If Kaito squints, he can see Delilah being pet all around her face. “It’s Chris’s birthday. We’re making him a cake.”

“Michael, I get,” Kaito says. Slowly, yes, but he’s making the effort to straighten himself up and rub the sleep from his eyes, and isn’t that what counts? “But how the hell did _you_ perform the mental gymnastics to get out of bed before noon for another human being?”

Thomas huffs, dismissive. “Shut up, Kaito. You’re gay.”

Kaito wonders if the anemia jokes were getting too stale, or if Thomas has actually forgotten the name of what Kaito has already.

Still, they manage to fumble through the recipe with relative ease, and not loudly enough to wake anyone, either. A Chris’s birthday miracle, second only to the fact that he’s apparently a Cancer – wait, no, Gemini. Much better. They even make it from scratch, to boot; when Kaito asked why they couldn’t just rough it with the old classic Betty Crocker box mix, Thomas just wrinkled his nose, prompting Michael to explain that they’d tried that once, only for Chris to politely accept then privately dispose of his own piece. Kaito asked what about box mix was so abhorrent that it offended his palate that badly. Thomas threw his hands up in the air like he had been very consistently and very earnestly been trying to make this point to God and everybody for three years.

The point is: the cake gets made, and they even have the good grace to clean up afterward.

“We made too much batter,” Michael says sheepishly, like too many sweets in a house of teenage boys has ever been an issue. Leaving that problem for someone else to take care of (preferably someone capable of carrying such a bulky bowl), he grabs the whisk they used, and _plop_ into the suds-sea in the sink it goes.

Really, the fact that there was enough batter to fill two tins in the first place is basically a miracle. Thomas looks like he just got off of a particularly gruesome shift at Silent Hill's bakery, and yeah, okay, all three of them were a little generous with the taste-testing. “Honestly, I'm just happy we got through that alive,” Thomas says. He's still got a hell of a case of bedhead – not that it’s much different from his usual look – and looks tranquil enough that Kaito can only guess he’s thinking about heading back up to bed.

“Halfway through,” Kaito corrects. Thomas blinks at him like he just joked about burning their house down. “What, did you think it was going to ice itself?”

Arson, as it turns out, would've been preferable. “ _Icing?_ I'm not good at icing cakes! I've never even seen Cake Boss! III, tell him–”

“You're not good at anything.” (“Hey!”) Kaito yawns. “I wanna get this done as much as you do, you know. Faster to ice with three people than two.”

Thomas hunches his shoulders but doesn't argue, which Kaito jots down as the daily sign of apocalypse before glancing fleetingly out the window for seven-headed angels. No such luck. “Ugh, fine,” Thomas says. “If you want me around so bad you should just say so.”

“If train were passing you and the antichrist I'd push you first,” Kaito says without blinking.

For all Thomas's bitching, they manage to get it done pretty quickly; Michael has the foresight to put on Cutthroat Kitchen while they work (the only program they can all agree on), so there's no uncomfortable silence to cut through. From there, getting into a rhythm is easy. They're all still sleepy and softer for it – even Thomas is less quick to bite, seems fuzzier around the edges with a dog at his feet and Alton Brown’s dulcet tones in his ears – so collaborating on something mindless is easy-bordering-on-nice. They're... probably not ever going to be bakers, but there are no bare patches and it's pretty even so Chris can get over it. Hopefully nothing makes it into the trash.

“Hey Michael,” he says when they're almost done. It's such an impulse that his own voice startles him, but Michael looks up at him expectantly, a bit of pink smeared across the side of his cheek. “Did you ever throw away that left-over batter?”

If, after filling up a little cupcake tin for Haruto, he realizes he has plenty enough for three more, well. Waste not want not.

* * *

Apparently the cake couldn’t have been that good, however, because in what can only be a strike of revenge Chris takes them out for a family hiking trip. Sure, he says it’s a treat, but he’s also the only one in the family who owns khakis, so Kaito isn’t fooled.

They’ve been out of the mini-van for all of three minutes when Thomas – bedecked in a Hollister button-up and sunglasses, and some kind of band-aid over his nose like a wannabe lifeguard – scouts out an information center with an unprecedented eagle eye. “I’m gonna go get soda,” he says, waving off with a two-finger salute. Kaito figures they probably won’t see him again til it’s time to leave. It’s the only time he’s ever envied him, and the feeling sits queasily in his gut.

“Get water,” Chris interjects, echoed in agreement by a concerned Michael. At that, Haruto gives a little tug on Kaito’s fingers, a little _nii-san,_ and, well, shit.

“I’ll go with you,” Kaito says. Thomas glares at him; he does his best to return it with a look that says _sorry, I don’t want to be here either, but I’m not going to let this five-year-old dehydrate so you can fuck off more successfully into the woods and convince other white people you’re Mothman._ “Haruto needs some water too.”

Big mistake. He can practically hear Chris’s eyes lighting up at some perceived attempt to play family bonding match-maker, and never has his young life flashed before his eyes so quickly.

But Chris must smell blood in the air, because before Kaito even opens his mouth, he says in that pristine, perfectly reasonable PTA mom voice, “Thomas can take him.”

Thomas scowls. It really is a day for new and exciting feelings, because for once Kaito is incredibly grateful for his horrible disposition. “Hell no.”

“Chris,” Kaito says, unable to keep the shudder from his voice. “It’s fine–”

It’s like fucking magic. He pulls some kind of honor student big brother bullshit and suddenly Kaito’s watching Thomas trudge away, Haruto’s little hand clutched clumsily in his own. Kaito’s going to die here.

The addition of Haruto pretty much ensures that it’ll be a quick run, but for the time being it leaves them with the odd trio of Chris, Kaito, and Michael. Nothing to be worried about in the irritation department, sure, but it’s quite the intimidatingly squeaky-clean duo, and he jokes as much when the silence becomes a little more awkward than pleasant. Better than commenting on Chris's weird sandals, at least. 

“Do you think so?” Chris laughs. “I wouldn’t say that. I know Thomas acts like something of a black sheep, but we’ve all had our moments – you know the story of the hole in the kitchen wall, for example.”

Michael lets out something akin to a squeak. Kaito raises a brow. “I don’t, actually?”

Chris smiles fondly, straightening his map of the trail out in his hands. “The night after Michael had his tonsils taken out, we had pizza delivered, but they mistakenly delivered regular breadsticks instead of cheesy bread as per his request. He was… rather upset, and rather medicated, so in a teary rage he ended up…” He gestures vaguely. “…slamming his head into the wall.”

“Chris!” Michael wails, clearly trying very hard to not seem as upset as he is.

“What?” He ruffles Michael’s hair, which seems to soothe nigh-instantly. “We covered it just fine, and you were awfully out of it. It’s quite the amusing story, you know.”

"I– I know! just… I thought it was one of those things we didn't mention,” Michael says, wringing his hands. “Like dad’s TiVo, or the fact that we put Thomas on a leash when he was little."

Kaito lights up.

“We don’t talk about that!” And oh, there’s Thomas, with Haruto alive and in tow, so this conversation is about to either die or get much livelier. Judging by the annoyance on Thomas’s face, sunglasses pushed up past his hairline, probably the former. For once.

Kaito smiles a little despite himself. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It was kind of a foregone conclusion.”

Thomas’s eyes go sharp and narrow at him, but before his mouth can pinch too much he seems to think better of it. Instead, he puts a hand on Haruto’s shoulder. Oh boy. “Hey, Haruto,” he says. “Show your big bro what I taught you.”

“Penis!” Haruto shouts, beaming up at him.

The final vestiges of Kaito's grip on reality begin to crumble.

* * *

And speaking of the great outdoors.

The Arclights have this shitty barbecue every Memorial Day, which Kaito figures is a chance for people to show off their kids to their colleagues and soak in the glory of being rich and white. He isn't young enough to be cute or a prodigy and isn't old enough to be hearing from the Ivy Leagues any time soon, so after the first excruciating round of introductions he ducks out to the edge of the property with his 3DS like a real American.

Halfway through his third level of Kirby, Thomas ambles out through the trees, Delilah at his heels. He looks too out of sorts to be performing at his usual levels of obnoxious, which is… a surprise, really. Kaito figured he’d be basking in all the attention given the beehive of wealthy adults buzzing about, each neatly loaded with ego-fluffing dialogue. Parties turn them into ragdolls – pull the string, get a polished compliment. It’s Thomas Arclight’s veritable paradise.

...Huh.

“You know, I thought that if you went outside you'd actually combust,” Kaito says conversationally, half-hoping he can prod Thomas away. It's stiflingly hot but otherwise a pretty decent afternoon, and something in the weird white summer-haze makes him want to stay outside. The Arclights basically have a lake in their backyard and everything. He doesn't really want Thomas ruining anything or, uh, just in his general vicinity. Ever.

“Huh? What are you even doing out here?” Thomas grumbles. He's all curled up on himself, neither preening for the guests nor shoveling hot dogs into his mouth by the second, so he’s… pretty much just not what Kaito was expecting at all. He pets Delilah absently. She nuzzles happily into his hand.

“Could ask you the same question,” he says. But Thomas looks awkward and uncomfortable, and Kaito's time with Michael must be growing on him because he adds, “I don't really like parties.”

“Yeah, me neither.” It's a lie, and Kaito knows it's a lie, but he also doesn't really care enough to try and dig into Thomas's psyche. He goes back to Kirby.

But Thomas is a chronic over-sharer and doesn't give enough of a shit about Kaito's opinion to bother staying quiet anyway, so he valiantly forges on. “Chris’s stupid internship is all anyone wants to talk about anyway. What’s so special about getting in where your dad works? It’s stupid.”

“Yeah,” Kaito agrees, more emphatically than he’d like. Chris would’ve gotten it anyway – they both know that – but if nothing else Kaito understands the fundamental human need to bitch it out sometimes.

“Besides.” He tosses a rock in the lake. It sinks with a _plonk_. “If it’s not him, it’s Michael. He’s just _so_ cute and _so_ sweet and _so_ smart, like yeah, we get it, he knows all of the state capitals, just give him the fucking keys to the city already I fucking guess.”

 _Oh._ Kaito almost feels stupid for not realizing this was an attention whore thing all along, honestly – really, what else drives him? But Delilah is lounging happily in the sun, and Thomas throws another rock into the lake, and he doesn’t really feel like being snide right now. _Plonk._

“It’s just an age thing,” he says instead. Thomas glances back at him, surprise in the wrinkle of his brow. Kaito coughs and takes care to keep his voice neutral. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but middle-schoolers are terrifying. Adults don’t want to come near us because it’s like throwing Mentos into Diet Coke every time they open their mouth.”

 _Plonk._ “You’re just saying that to make yourself feel better,” Thomas grumbles, but he’s relaxing and Kaito knows it. Haha. _Plonk._

 _Plonk._ “Why are you throwing rocks into the lake?”

“Huh? Oh.” Maybe it’s just the heat, but he actually looks embarrassed for a minute, cheeks a little pink in the slowly descending sun. “I don’t know how to skip stones. It’s just a habit, I guess.”

“What? Who doesn’t know how to skip stones? Even Haruto can do it.”

“Hey! Not all of us had time to throw a bunch of rocks into water all day. I had more important shit to do.”

“Like play Duel Monsters.”

“ _Kaito_ –”

He raises his hands in mock-surrender, only to drop them to lift himself up from the grass. Beggars can’t be choosers, yeah? “Come on, I’ll teach you.”

Thomas starts, looking at him like he’s about to draw a snake from his boot. “What...?”

“I told you, even Haruto can do it. Can’t have you embarrassing the family because you’re all limp-wristed.”

And that sparks another round of insult-flinging, and another, until finally Thomas relents and lets Kaito show him the proper technique. Of throwing rocks into water. It’s like that, sometimes.

The scary thing about Thomas is that he sometimes goes pliant and almost soft, vaguely human behind the seventh-grade mess of angst and vague familial dysfunction. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it’s a reminder that they’re not different species, and something about that is unnerving. Even more unnerving is that Kaito’s found he almost _likes_ Thomas when he’s like this – listening attentively to how Kaito says to flick his wrist, usual insults dulled down into something almost banter-like. They’re almost like… well, friends. A bone-chilling thought.

By the time they tucker out it’s gotten pretty dark, everything washed a deep blue as they lie back on the grass. It’s early summer, and it feels like it, too, the sound of cicadas pressed somewhere against the horizon with the smell of cooling dirt. Fireflies are starting to freckle the dark. Kaito’s bones feel sun-bleached and heavy.

“Hey,” Kaito says suddenly. “Why do you call Michael 'Three' sometimes?” He isn't sure if he's more surprised that he's asking or that he genuinely wants to know.

“Oh, that?” Thomas asks. He yawns, too sleepy to pack much bite. “They're just dumb nicknames from when we were kids. When we were mad at our dad, you know? His was Three, mine was Four. Chris's was– well, Chris's should've been Five, but he was V because we were dumbshit toddlers who didn't know how roman numerals worked basically, and Chris went along with it. I guess it just stuck.”

“Oh.” He rolls onto his back, staring up at the trees. It's a stupid kid thing, barely worth mentioning, and it's not that Kaito had really expected anything else, but... knowing feels important. It settles softly into the pit of his gut, and Kaito wonders if he'll ever dislodge it. Ever really want to. “What about One and Two?”

He catches Thomas's nose wrinkling in his peripheral vision. “You really think any 5-year-old boy is going to agree to be number Two?”

“Point taken.”

* * *

“Kaito.”

“What.”

“Buy a handbag.”

“I told you, I can’t. The game doesn’t let you.”

“What the fuck! Why is this shit game so opposed to style.”

“Why are you obsessed with making me carry around a purse?”

“I’m just saying! You get a red handbag, you can fit more potions _and_ kick Heartless ass in style. No drawbacks to be had.”

“There’s no reason for Sora to have a handbag. His pants are huge and this is a plot-based game.”

“Then why do they put the _handbags_ in every damn _window_! False advertising.”

“Maybe the next game will have a courtroom plotline and you can sue. Goofy’s already head of the royal guard, why not a lawyer, too?”

“Oh shit, he’d probably be really good at it too. Suave motherfucker in the courtroom and on the battlefield.”

“Try not to get too into it.”

“I’m just being supportive.”

From his place on the loveseat, Michael laughs to himself. He’s got a book splayed over his lap, sun spilling through the window and onto the pages, but he seems more interested in listening in on their conversation than he is in Saint-Exupéry.

“What’s so funny, III?” Thomas asks. His voice has the usual sneer painted along the ridges, but there’s no bite to it and they all know it.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Michael says. He smooths a bookmark into his copy of _The Little Prince_ and pulls his knees to his chest. “It’s just a nice afternoon.”

* * *

“Alright, I’m done with this.” Kaito drops a shoebox onto the coffee table with a thud. The brown Kraft paper crinkles as it hits. “Let’s duel.”

Thomas, at the very least, bothers to pause his game before looking up in disgust. Progress, people. “Did you think that sounded cool? I bet you thought that sounded cool, didn’t you.”

“Shut it.” And it _did_ sound cool. “I haven’t had anyone to play Duel Monsters with since we moved. You owe it to me.”

“ _How_ do I owe it to you?”

“Because your dad is little gremlin who steals Haruto’s sweets if I don’t keep them hidden out of reach.” Byron’s antics are something of a trump card with the three of them, albeit for different reasons. Michael undoubtedly does not understand them; Chris dies of embarrassment every time they’re so much as mentioned; and Thomas has such a convoluted labyrinth of a relationship with his father that even Kaito has given up on trying to keep up with it.

True to form: Thomas, looking troubled and finding himself without a proper response to this, begrudgingly sets down his controller and headset.

“Alright, alright, so let me get this straight,” he grumbles. Kaito’s got them spread out on a blanket on the floor, which is really the only appropriate place to play Duel Monsters besides standing dramatically in the rain. “You played the Dad Card just to get me to play a dumb card game with you.”

The fight to not make a trap card Dad Card pun is a physically painful one. He perseveres. “A dumb card game you _like,_ ” he says. Sets a card down. “Don’t read too much into it. I just figure if you’re putting forth the effort to sneak around, you must either like it a lot or be pretty damn good.”

“I like it _and_ I’m damn good.” Bingo. Far be it from Thomas to deny himself a chance to brag. He knows it, too, judging by the little scowl that unfurls on his face afterward. He plops his head down on Delilah to cope. “Whatever. So why do you care?”

Spell card. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asks. “Why wouldn’t I want someone good to duel against.”

And that’s all it takes, really. Pride goes straight to his head before anything else can catch up; he preens under the semblance of praise, and while it ramps up his ego a bit, it isn’t so unbearable. Especially considering that – shockingly enough – Thomas actually _is_ a good duelist. It doesn’t take much to get him talking, either, babbling on about how he and Chris taught Michael a while back too, and they can teach Haruto once he “becomes sentient or whatever,” and all in all it’s… kind of nice. For Thomas.

It isn’t until they’re straightening up – or rather, Kaito’s straightening up, and Thomas is watching – that he starts to calm back down into his normal obnoxious scene-frat persona. Which is… probably for the better. Wouldn’t want Chris filing a case of missing persons on him or anything.

“We should do this again sometime,” Kaito says offhandedly. “If you want.”

And Thomas – startles, looks at him like he’s waiting for a punchline. “Why.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “Because it’s fun. Idiot.”

“Well yeah,” Thomas snaps, instantly on the defensive. “Idiot.”

They sit awkwardly, letting the silence brew into something stifling. “So,” Thomas says, finally, fiddling with his collar obnoxiously, “wanna hear me belch the lyrics to S My D by Blood on the Dancefloor.”

“I have jaundice,” Kaito replies, more out of reflex than anything else. He’s so tired.

(They start dueling every other afternoon. Michael comes too.)

* * *

“Kaito.”

Hell no.

“Kaito, wake up.”

Absolutely not. He doesn't have to so much as unglue an eye open to know that it's still dark out, and it's finally his day to sleep in and hell if he's gonna let Thomas ruin it. He snuggles insistently into his blanket cocoon. Hopefully Thomas'll get the point.

“Shit, come on, Kaito, _please_ –”

Stupid, expecting Thomas to be able to pick up on anything. Goddammit. At least he didn’t sic his horror-hound on him this time.

There's still enough sleepy cotton candy fuzz over his brain to keep him from getting too angry, but the rude awakening is enough to get his hackles up immediately. Dumbass, what could he possibly need at this hour? Need Kaito to fix his X-Box again? Break something of Chris's and need help patching it up? Finally need to get bailed out of jail? …Wait, he's right here, that can't be right, _fuck_ it’s still dark out, what time is it–-

He opens an eye blearily. Thomas is hovering at the edge of his bed looking very, very small.

“Delilah is sick,” he says quietly. His eyes are bright in the night-glow through the curtains, like he's about to cry or break something. Maybe both.

“Dogs get sick, Thomas.” He pulls himself up into a half-sitting position, one quilted knee to his chest. When he speaks, he does so carefully. “It'll be fine. We'll take her to the vet in the morning.”

But Thomas shakes his head, and some weak attempt at anger radiates off of him. “I know that! I'm not a fucking toddler. She – she's really sick, and she won't get up or nuzzle my hand or...”

Oh Jesus, he's gonna cry. Kaito rakes his hand through his hair, sighs a little as he swings his leg over the side of his bed. “Show me.”

Kaito isn’t an animal person, much less one who would know what to do with a sick dog – at the end of the day, he’s thirteen, and jokes aside he’s pointedly aware of that. His little brother has been sick since before he was even born; his own helplessness is something he’s pointedly conscious of at all times. He doesn’t really know why Thomas chose to get him in the first place; he doesn’t have a car, much less a degree in animal science. But he’s clearly spooked, and… it won’t kill Kaito to look at the damn dog.

Unfortunately, look is about all he _can_ do. He can tell she’s sick. She’s huddled in a lump on Thomas’s bed, eyes dull and sunken in the lamplight and breathing sounding vaguely off. A coil of worry unfurls in Kaito’s gut, unchecked.

He takes a deep breath and raises the figurative white flag. Pointedly aware indeed. “We should get Chris.”

The reaction is immediate. “ _No._ ”

“Thomas. I don’t know anything about dogs. I’m sure she’ll be fine, but I don’t…” He trails off, uncertain. He can’t do anything, not really. He’d known that from the start. Thomas must have, too; for all his bullshit eccentricity and algebraic failures, he’s not stupid.

So why Kaito?

“I know.” Thomas closes his eyes. He looks normal, looks tired, but he doesn’t sound angry, for once. “Yeah, I know, just… I don’t want to get Chris, yet.”

And that’s the end of it, really. Kaito may have the emotional intelligence of a roasted pecan, but he knows a call for company when he sees one. He takes a seat at the end of Thomas’s bed and says, “Okay.”

In the end, it’s nothing significant. Thomas sits cross-legged and pets Delilah slowly while Kaito stays with him in silence, perusing Google on his phone for possibilities. She’s probably dehydrated. Thomas, as it turns out, had Googled his way to that answer too; Kaito can only imagine he didn’t mention it in hopes that Kaito would come to the same conclusion. He cries, and it’s ugly, but it’s also silent, and Kaito gets the impression it’s more of an outlet for the past hour’s anxiety than anything else.

“Hey, uh.” It’s been a while. Kaito’s exhausted, but… “Chris is gonna have to be up soon to go to the lab, and there’s not really anything he can do til then, anyway, since everything’s gonna be closed… a bunch of the articles I read said beef bouillon broth a couple times a day will help dogs with dehydration. I can try that in the meantime, if you want?”

Thomas’s hackles shoot up immediately. “What’s beef bouillon?” he asks warily, arms in a protective halo around Delilah’s neck even as he wipes his cheeks with his shoulder. Like Kaito’s gonna try to poison the dog he just spent over an hour sitting with, jeez.

He rolls his eyes. “Calm down, PETA, it’s those little cube things Chris has us make soup with.”

“Shut up, Kaito,” Thomas says. He sniffles, and something about him softens as he nods the affirmative. “You're anemic.”

“And gay.”

* * *

The thing is, whether they like it or not, they can’t just sit around and play Duel Monsters _all_ the time, so eventually they decide on something to shake things up. “Something” was, originally, the fun and family-oriented classic Uno, which Kaito was sure not even Thomas could screw up. He was, in due time, proven completely wrong, as usual. Three draw-fours in a row had not been kind to him, no matter how clever a riff it was on his childhood nickname, and when Michael whipped out that blue Reversal card, well. It’s a miracle they didn’t have any broken bones.

So now it’s Monopoly. Kaito has always been of the mind that what Monopoly piece you choose is highly indicative of your personality, ie Thomas Arclight is a flashy douchebag who picks the Race Car every time, go figure. Michael had very graciously bowed out of his usual Scottie Dog token call for Haruto’s sake, opting instead for the modest Thimble.

He himself picks the battleship. Obviously.

At present, the power is out, so they’re stuck reading by candlelight. Or, well. Electric lanternlight. (“You can read?” Kaito had asked Thomas in hushed surprise, chin resting on the top of Haruto’s head as he helped count out everyone’s money. Thomas threw the dice at his head. He claimed it was for joke repeating more than anything, and yeah, okay, maybe he's getting stale.) It’s actually a bit of a jazz; Haruto’s pretty small, and you can’t play with two people anyway, so he’d never played Monopoly outside of Windows 98 before. Not that playing board games with Thomas Arclight is what he’d classify as a necessary fundamental childhood experience, but hey – sometimes it helps to have an idiot to cheer against.

He plays an excellent banker, and Michael keeps Thomas from getting too handsy with the properties stack while no one else is looking, and all in all it’s just a pretty good time. Plus, it gives him _so_ many opportunities to make fun of Thomas.

At present, the latter draws a Get Out Of Jail Free card. Kaito nods sagely. “Saving up for your future, I see.”

Like that.

All in all, things are going great until Michael lands on Free Parking, at which point Thomas passes him the collected tax money and Kaito hands him an additional $200 from the bank. “Whoa, whoa, Daddy Warbucks,” Thomas says, shoving his hand out of the pot. (“Annie? Really?”) “You’re gonna spoil him rotten – he’s already got Park Place, c’mon.”

“You don’t just change the rules based on the properties someone has, sh– stupid,” he protests. He’s getting worse at censoring himself around Haruto these days. Thomas really is a bad influence.

Michael laughs. “It doesn’t really matter to me! We can just check the ruleb–”

“Shut up III, I know the rules. We’re not _changing_ anything, Kaito, that’s just how it _is_ in the first place.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, you’re such a sore loser. _Chris_ –”

Thomas’s mouth twists.

"We can just check the rulebook," Michael insists.

Kaito frowns of his own right, pushing aside Thomas’s dedication to being a whiny bitch all the time. He can deal. Michael and his peacemaking can deal too. “Chris, hey. Listen, what are the rules of Free Parking?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Michael’s hands twisting into bows in his lap.

Chris hums absently from the table. “What was that?”

“Rules of Free Parking. Monopoly. Your family has like three boxes upstairs, I know you’ve played it.”

“Hmm.” There’s a lengthy amount of time before Chris says anything, enough that he can feel the awkwardness in the shift of Thomas and Michael on the carpet next to him. “Does it really matter?”

“It doesn’t!” Michael says immediately. “It really doesn’t matter, I don’t need it, see!” He laughs and hands Kaito the little slips of color back. It’s the most force he’s seen from him.

Oh boy. Kaito... might owe someone an apology.

Thomas just stares at Michael; for once, Kaito thinks he’s putting some kind of thought in before he speaks. “Hey, Michael,” he says, voice low. “I gotta give Delilah her medicine – you wanna come with me? I need someone to carry the lantern.”

Michael looks back at Kaito helplessly, and– oh. Gee. “I think that’s a good idea,” Kaito says, trying for reassuring. “Haruto should probably go to bed soon anyway, right kiddo?”

Thomas nods at him once, slow. By the time he and Michael disappear upstairs, Haruto is already asleep in Kaito’s lap.

* * *

Once Delilah recovers in full, things are… different. It’s a small change, thankfully, more of a shift than anything, and that makes it easy for Kaito to swallow. He and Thomas and Michael eventually fall into step together, with occasional breaks into permutations and fewer jealous outbursts from Mister Pyro Teen. They play video games, watch shitty reality TV, play school with Haruto; sometimes they even manage to convince him to come outside and throw the ball for Delilah, which to Kaito's horror seems to have activated some thawing agent in the recesses of his shitty teenage heart. Which, whatever. He’s still a cat person. Delilah is still a white people name.

Chris remains a distant figure, to the point that Kaito sees him more frequently in the living room family photos than in person; Thomas is even moodier than usual when he’s mentioned or present, but – avoided easily enough. One problem at a time.

Both slowly (to the weather channel) and quickly (to the pre-first-day depression), summer leaks away into fall, languid and lingering like a cat moving out of the sun. Kaito starts high school – more or less a big deal, though the buildings are right next to each other. His classes are advanced enough to get the occasional compliment, which aggregate into the small confidence boost allowed to him by God roughly every five years. School is school, and home is home, but things are – startlingly and contentedly okay.

And, every Tuesday and Thursday after school, Kaito and Thomas take the bus to the elementary school after-care program for the local Duel Monsters club.

“This is so embarrassing,” Thomas says. He says it every week. He drags his hands down his face, distorting his features into something even uglier than usual. He does that every week too.

“Your self-obsession is embarrassing,” Kaito says easily, puncturing his Caprisun with the straw and setting a card down in defense mode.

Thomas grumbles, thumbing through his deck. “We could do this at home, you know.”

“ _You_ could do this at home.” He casts him a pointed look. “ _I’m_ playing other people besides you and Michael.”

“I tried!” he says, the picture of indignation. “It’s not my fault Ryouga is a bitch-ass twerp–” 

“I can hear you,” the aforementioned bitch-ass twerp says from across the classroom, the picture of disgruntled serenity. He is, for a ten-year-old, admirably thick-skinned. When Thomas tried to cheat him out of a card on their first day here – undeniably the result of some misguided preteen nervousness and undeniably too stupid to garner any of Kaito’s sympathy – Ryouga twisted his arm so bad he was sent to time-out, where he’d stay until his parents came to take him and his twin sister home two hours later. Kaito had watched it all in respectful admiration, and sneaked him some Goldfish crackers in support of whipping Thomas into shape.

Presently, Thomas startles and yelps, “No one is talking to you!” as his arms slide unconsciously under his desk before turning back to Kaito. “Anyway, I’ll branch out eventually. Don’t wanna overwhelm anyone with my fanservice.”

“Your _what,_ ” Kaito says, exhausted.

“You know, fanservice – the good stuff, the reason everyone watches. Brand building, remember?”

“That’s not…" He remembers, with a heavy heart, the spray tan incident. "Yeah, okay, whatever. You go for it with that.”

Eventually, Thomas does wheedle him into playing a round with him. Thomas isn’t a bad duelist (on a good day wherein he was also being possessed by an angelic being, Kaito might even admit he’s _really good_ ), and though he’s yet to beat Kaito, he can usually give him enough of a run for his money that it’s exciting nonetheless. Occasionally, they even garner a small crowd of fascinated elementary- and middle-schoolers, which leads to Kaito feeling like the world’s lamest but most adored rockstar and Thomas going into full-blown diva mode.

“Hey!” one kid says as they wrap up their duel. He has both the brightest smile and most unfortunate haircut Kaito has ever seen, and he’s holding onto Ryouga’s hand like swinging it is the best thing he could ever do. Ryouga looks pointedly disinterested. “Hey, hey, we should duel! Both of you! You first, then– oh, we could tag duel! You two against me and Shark, and–”

“I’m not dueling him,” Ryouga interrupts flatly, and oh, yeah, guess that means he _does_ go by Shark sometimes. It’s a nickname Kaito’s heard thrown around, but he’d sort of just chalked it up to white kids not knowing how to pronounce ‘Ryouga’ right. “This is Yuuma. He’s spent the last year traveling with his family, but he’s back now. He’s an idiot.”

Yuuma laughs, big and bright, his whole mouth falling open. “Sha-a-ark! That’s mean!”

“Don’t call me that,” Ryouga snaps. He seems… flustered, maybe? Kaito isn’t great at reading the emotional spectra of ten-year-olds, apparently. Maybe Michael had just made things too easy on him. Ryouga turns back to Kaito. “You can duel him if you want, but leave me out of it. I’m not wasting my time on someone who barely knows the rules.”

“But I do!” Yuuma says, nonplussed. He puffs out his chest, excited. “I’ve been practicing a lot!”

“That’s what you always say.”

“But–!”

Eager to nip another round of senseless arguing in the bud, Kaito takes Yuuma up on it, leaving Thomas with the hilarious (but “completely accidental, honest!”) task of sitting with Ryouga. Kaito’s inexplicably charmed, anyway; yeah, Yuuma’s kind of grating, but not in the usual ten-year-old way, something bright and sincere fizzing in the air around him. Maybe he’s just gone soft-hearted. Whatever. First dogs, now small children. He’s practically a Disney princess.

That, and he’s kind of hoping Thomas gets his arm twisted again.

“Holy– crap,” Kaito says after a few turns, barely remembering to censor himself. He can’t help it; the kid may have started clumsily, but he’s managed to keep a pretty relentless pace. “Thought you said he barely knew the rules, Ryouga?”

“I learned!” Yuuma says. He’s fairly beaming with pride, and it must be genuine, too, because Ryouga is way too occupied bickering with Thomas to pay him much mind. Yuuma laughs, nose crinkling. “When me ‘n my parents were back in Japan last year, I met someone, and he was like, a su-u-uper good duelist.” His eyes are suddenly even starrier than usual. “We talk on the phone all the time now, too! He has lotsa cute Duel Monsters plushies, though, so it’s more fun to play at his house…”

This seems to catch Ryouga’s attention. He goes pink, cuffing Thomas’s ear irritably, and Jesus, are all these kids gay? Is this Kaito’s fault? Does he radiate it that powerfully? Whatever, he’s done worse. Could be a useful skill in the future, if nothing else.

Yuuma chatters on happily, even when Kaito wins, and when it’s time to say goodbye he and Ryouga (who did not twist Thomas’s arm this time) and Rio (Ryouga’s twin sister, who did) all set off together. Kaito yawns fondly. Kids.

“Well _you_ certainly had a good time,” Thomas says. He sniffs.

Kaito’s savvy enough to recognize one of Thomas’s smaller tiffs for what it is, and honestly if Kaito’s worth being Thomas’s weird brand of brother-jealous over, he’s almost flattered. Still, pointing that out would be murder-suicide, so instead he says: “If you’re that mad about getting your arm fucked up by a bunch of elementary schoolers, maybe stop trying to cheat at a children’s card game?”

Thomas bristles. “Shut up, Kaito, you’re–”

Kaito cuffs his ear. They go home.

* * *

“I can’t wait til you can drive,” Thomas says.

Kaito raises an eyebrow, trying not to go cross-eyed over his social studies homework. “Really? Thought you’d be too afraid to catch gay to mooch rides off of me.”

“Yeah, well.” He throws a ball for Delilah. It bounces a little more harshly than the last. “Better than riding in a mini-van.”

It occurs to Kaito that maybe this is, in fact, going to far.

* * *

So he decides to intervene.

“You should talk to him,” Kaito says.

He’s encroaching on Chris’s work time, he knows, and now that Chris is a junior the balance between work and school has started causing a visible strain. At some point Kaito was _sure_ he had a personal preference for not stepping in on their family drama, but, well. Busy may be busy, but Kaito is starting high school and Thomas is getting notably more upset about this as it drags on. He can grow a spine for a second if it stops Chris from running away to his lab.

Still, Chris doesn’t seem bothered, which is kind of Kaito’s point in all this. He gives a thin smile and barely looks up from his notes. “To whom?”

God, he’s annoying. It was almost endearing when he was around enough to balance it out with normal human interaction, but now… “Well, I’ll give you a hint: starts with a T, has a dog you used to care about?”

“You’re awful concerned all of a sudden, Kaito,” Chris says mildly, and that – he can call bullshit on. Chris may be brilliant, and Chris may be a shinier more put-together iteration of Kaito that he’ll never quite be able to reach, but Chris is being a giant goddamn tool and Kaito’s honestly kind of sick of it.

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Just – I’ve _been_ concerned about this, thanks, not that you’d know. I’ve been playing Duel Monsters with Thomas, and we’re teaching Haruto, and Michael and I play school with Haruto, and we all watch stupid cooking shows together, I _thought_ that would make you happy but you haven’t even _noticed.”_

Chris, to his credit, only startles briefly before slipping back into neutral stance. Typical. “If you’re just doing this for my benefit, then I’m afraid it–”

“Oh give me a _break_ – it’s not about you! Nothing is ever about you because you’re not even here!”

“My schedule isn’t exactly something I can h–”

Kaito's beyond it. “It’s not about your goddamn schedule. It’s about the fact that you went on and on about how we should try to be a family, how we should settle our differences and at least act like we like each other, but you don’t even know what’s going on with any of us!" He thinks about Thomas and his dumb dog. "You’re so fucking–obsessed with keeping up this masturbatory family portrait you’ve got in your head that you don’t even care about the fact that we’re real people. You don’t even care that–”

Chris’s palms rattle against the mahogany of his father’s desk, and suddenly he’s standing, staring at Kaito with something too intense to stifle immediately. “ _I do care_.” He takes a deep breath, but the tension around him doesn’t disappear; rather, it metamorphoses, contracts and coils around him into something heavier, more exhausted. When he speaks again, it’s to the knuckles of his hands, gripped into spider-joints on the desk. “I do care.”

There’s a part of Kaito that buckles at that. Not in the sense that he wants to cower or surrender, just – whether he likes it or not there are cobblestones of caretaker instinct all down his spine, the same itch to bandage Haruto’s scraped knees or help Michael with dishes. It’s stupid. Chris is older than him and it isn’t like Kaito to coddle. Still, when he speaks up, it isn’t as harsh as he’d like it to be. “Hell of a way to show it.”

Chris takes a deep breath and lowers stiffly back into his chair. He looks young, for once, braid knocked a little loose after a day’s work and lower lip threaded through his teeth.

“Thomas is… difficult,” he says. Kaito snorts lightly at that, but he lets it slide. “I don’t-- I don’t know how to handle him when he lashes out. I know withdrawing isn't the ideal. But waiting it out is…”

Kaito shifts awkwardly. “I’m not an expert on dealing with him or anything, but, uh. For what it’s worth, I think he’s more upset by you not being around than he would be if you screwed up here and there.”

Chris glances at him suddenly. “Did he say something to you?”

“Well, no,” he says, hands up in mock-surrender, “but Thomas is...”

They both laugh a little. “I know,” Chris says. “I know.”

And despite everything, Kaito thinks he might.

“The lab has gotten… difficult,” Chris continues. His voice is careful, neutral. “It’s nothing I can control, necessarily, but you’re right that I should be able to take– certain measures, to ensure I’m more frequently free.”

Kaito shifts from foot to foot. “It’s not me you need to tell that to, you know.”

“Well, I suppose mentioning it over ice cream wouldn’t hurt anyone – if you and Haruto would like to join us, of course…?”

For once, Kaito doesn’t comment on Chris’s PTA frontman shtick. It’s a start.

* * *

As with all dubious acts decried as gateways into delinquency by Protestant suburban mothers, they end up buying hair dye because of Duel Monsters.

They’d been dropped off at the outlet mall as a way to get them out of their fathers’s (and Chris’s) hair, and wouldn’t you know it, the trading card store was right next to the beauty supply store. The piercing-and-tattoo parlor is just two over, too, a real 1-2-3 step path to getting disowned by your conservative family. Sinister urban planning aside, Kaito doesn’t think he’s quite ready for any needles yet.

“I think it's going to look really good, Thomas!” Michael says, once again performing the saintly act of charity that is pretending Thomas could ever not look like a leering chicken nugget.

“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas grumbles. He's absolutely beaming under Michael's attentions and doing a shit job at hiding it. Kaito hums. “Just try not to make it look too gay.”

“Too late,” Kaito says, mostly to save Michael the trouble of trying to navigate the political intricacies of a teenage boy's internalized homophobia at the tender age of eleven. There'll be plenty of time for that at twelve.

Thomas, to his credit, is entirely unabashed. “You're one to talk Kaito. You don't even _look_ gay.”

“Yeah, well.” He thumbs through bottles of toner like he knows what any of the numbers mean. Weighing the pros and cons of sending Thomas and Michael to the next aisle as a distraction so he can look it up on his phone– appearing suspiciously knowledgeable about hair dye versus sacrificing his apparent omniscience. It’s a tough call. He manages to not consider pouring bleach into his eyes over it. “Not all of us can be as open as you.”

“Y– hey!” he fairly squeaks. Michael grabs one of his hands gently between his own in a silent plea to quiet down. In an outraged whisper: “I don't look gay!”

Kaito snorts. “Right. So the V-necks, the sunglasses indoors, the bronzer...”

“That's not gay!” Thomas says. Kaito turns to look at tarps, less out of genuine interest and more to hide the curve creeping up his mouth. This is probably stupid. “It's called being Californian!”

Michael giggles at that and, timidly judging the water safe enough to wade into, chimes, “Thomas, we're from New England.”

Thomas swipes him upside the head with a box of something shock-green, and Michael is laughing and Kaito's laughing and Thomas is kind of begrudgingly laughing too, however huffy. They grab some bleach (for Michael and Thomas – Kaito is a natural blond, and honestly, the _irony_ ), pick their colors, and pool their allotted spending money accordingly. Michael even graciously agrees to let them store their spoils in his paper Books-A-Million bag, so as to keep things a surprise.

…Not that it ends up doing much good, seeing as their party gets effectively crashed the next day.

“Chris!” Kaito squawks. It’s the closest he’s come to being sheepish around him since they first met and Kaito realized being gay _for_ your stepbrother was going to be a lot to explain to the Republicans. Thank God he got some taste, probably. “You’re home early!”

Chris blinks, setting down the box in his hand – oh shit, did he get cake? If they ruined their chances for cake then Haruto is never going to forgive them. “I told you I’d try cutting back how much time I spent at the lab, didn’t I?” His voice is fond, but he seems understandably distracted by the fact that he’s returned to find their scalps covered in various amounts of goop. “What… are you doing?”

He’s saved from formulating a coherent reply by Michael, who cuts bodily between them in a star-burst of knobby knees and peroxide-stench. “Surprise!”

Thomas sits up warily. There’s an air of skittishness around him, like he’s not entirely sure Chris isn’t about to make him write something penetant on the chalkboard or something, but Chris sends him a short little nod, which is the closest thing Kaito’s seen to “chill” from him yet. Kaito arches an impressed brow at how far the stick in his ass has dislodged.

Maybe they’re all changing.

And so it goes – Thomas clipping and dyeing Michael’s hair, Kaito doing the same for Thomas, and both of them fussing over Kaito’s while Kaito has the world’s stillest anxiety attack over the future of his scalp. Chris watches it all in silent amusement, occasionally throwing out the occasional dry comment or maybe sort of kind of actually helpful remark. He even serves up a snack for them while they wait for the dye to set: a cake he’d picked up from that bakery Haruto likes, sliced up and served on little tea plates. Haruto wanders in to endless delight. He doesn’t even ask about the weird shit on their heads.

(They do not think to time it; though gracious, Michael is too small to take the sink, so Kaito is about to take it when Thomas makes an unexpected offer instead. He thinks Chris helps him rinse it out.)

At some point between the towel-offs and the daisy-chain of blow-drying, Michael manages to sweet-talk Chris into letting Kaito use the leftover dye to put a few faint streaks in Chris’s own hair, on the condition that it’s mixed enough to go only faintly off his natural weird Sephiroth-silver. It is entirely too much pressure to stomach, given Chris’s professional job and academic standing. It’s an absolute dream come true, given who Chris is as a person.

And now they make an even weirder quartet than usual – Michael with barely any brown peeking out underneath the cap of strawberry pink, Thomas and Kaito with respective strikes of gold and blue around their faces, and Chris with something glacial in his hair catching the light. It’s all very Saturday morning cartoon. Must run in the family or something.

“Do you think dad’s gonna flip?” Thomas asks, seeming none too distressed by the possibility. He’s too busy toying with the strands of blond framing his face to feel much but delighted vanity. Like Tinkerbell.

Still, Kaito leans closer, biting back a crooked little grin in response. “Are you kidding?” he asks. He steals a glance at his own bangs in the mirror. “I’m just hoping he won’t ask us to dye his next.”

* * *

Luckily, no such problem arises; Byron barely pays them any mind, opting instead to breeze to his study for “cartoon time.” It’s nothing new, really.

At a loss for anything else to do, they amble out to the lake. Chris is free of obligations for a rare night, and they take advantage of the opportunity by ordering in, all five of them milling out with paper plates and pizza like some run-of-the-mill normal family or something. Cheesy bread for sure, this time. Delilah doesn’t even beg or anything, just lies happily at Thomas’s side; maybe he’s doing something right by the little hellhound after all.

“So I have to ask,” Chris says, amused. His hair is pulled into a loose little braid over his shoulder, the twilight catching warm and aglow on the streaks in his hair. Kaito shuffles his weight. “Whose idea was this hair dyeing business?”

The three of them glance at each other furtively. It’s mostly unsuccessful. “Uh,” Kaito says, because Thomas seems too suspicious of whether this is secretly a ploy to get him grounded to start grabbing for credit. “I think we just kind of wandered in together..?”

Chris’s eyebrows hit his hairline. He hums short and high.

“Oh no,” Thomas groans. It takes a valiant few moments for him to stop shoving stuffed crust down his gullet at the speed of light in order to continue, but they all wait patiently for him, watching all the while. “Why the hum, Christopher.”

Chris laughs a little. “It’s nothing!” he says, hands up in mock surrender. “Really.”

“Yeah _right._ ” He narrows his eyes. Delilah, sensing his enmity, peeps her head up and barks happily. Haruto pats her head. “You’re thinking about how much we’ve all bonded that we’re hanging out and doing shit like this, aren’t you. You sick bastard.”

“Language.” But it’s mild, and he’s smiling.

“Oh my God!” Thomas throws his hands up. “You totally were, weren’t you! Oh my god!”

Chris dabs at the curve of his mouth with a napkin, the picture of delicate grace. “I won’t deny I was… a little pleased to hear you were all–”

“Sick,” Kaito echoes in his most imperious monotone. He steals a piece of cheesy bread off Thomas’s plate as payment.

“Sick!” Michael says. It’s a very clearly confused chorus, but one that’s very clearly happy to be there. Kaito almost hopes Haruto will join in, but one quick glance in that direction assures him that he's preoccupied with Delilah.

Chris just looks at them, keeps smiling. Yeah, yeah, point proven.

But still, the subject tugs something to the forefront of his mind – a hop a skip a few months ago, hiding out from socialites in this same spot. He snorts. “Hey, Chris,” he says suddenly. “Can you skip stones?”

The response is a nearly cat-like tilt of Chris’s head. Out of the corner of his eye Kaito thinks he sees Thomas smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried, now that you mention it, no.”

Sometimes, Kaito thinks, the universe is good.

Nightfall finds them like this: sprawled out on a bunch of blankets, bloated on pizza and playing Duel Monsters as well as they can in the ever-dimming natural light. Haruto dozes on Delilah, but makes a valiant comeback to watch them play; Thomas brags over tugging him over to "his team," whatever that means. They tag-duel. They switch teams and tag-duel again.

So the evening goes


End file.
